Martina Mullaney - Usually She Is Disappointed
The exhibition Usually she is disappointed by an Irish artist Martina Mullaney borrows its title from the radical feminist manifesto, Dialectic of Sex, by Shulamith Firestone. By means of low-res photographs it looks at motherhood, feminism, politics, and the world of work after children. In this series, Martina Mullaney adopted a ‘kitchen table’ aesthetic. She re-photographed and appropriated images from academic books, borrowed images from her Facebook feed and other Facebook users, all mothers. The exhibition is a selection from more than 200 images and concentrates on the figure of the Missing Mother in the (art)world.
Martina Mullaney sees continuity between her life and work as natural, producing performance pieces that embody the personal-political maxim of the feminist movement. She seeks to critique the forced invisibility of mothers devising solidarity as a practical tool of resistance. This performative technique can take the form of live actions, discussions or the dissemination of images produced by marginalised maternal subjects.